The Forget-Me-Not Library is a sweet and hopeful novel, part coming of age, part magical- realism-light and generally a story about a small town with a lot to give when a person arrives there in need of some special healing. Juliet, a young woman from Michigan, was struck by lightening. She has physically recovered, but is still fragile emotionally. She is a nurse, thinking about going to graduate school for a masters in nursing, partly because that is what her mother did and partly because that is what her mother wants for her. Her mother loves her and she loves her mother, but it is time to do something more than go to therapy and think about her grad school application. Juliet is confused about what she wants next and now is less certain of who she is. So, she takes a road trip, loosely following a route her uncle, took many years ago.
When her car breaks down in Forget me Not Alabama, there’s a delay in the repair. Fortunately, the old man who lives where her car went bust and his young granddaughter quickly befriend Juliet. Through them, she meets his newly single and rather untrusting daughter, Tallulah, who works at the local library. Along the way, Juliet and Tallulah navigate their new normals and find each has something to offer the other. Pretty much everyone in town and Juliet get to know one another and she finds she is healing along with her new friend.
This could have been hackneyed but it just isn’t. There’s a little magic in the air. There are lovable three dimensional people. There’s mystery, a few twists and very decent writing and characters. It’s like a really good but Hallmark Movie, predictable, full of unbelievable coincidences but one written better and played by the best, lease sappy actors. Worth reading on a down day for sure. I very much enjoyed the narrators, Hallie Ricardo and Stephanie Willis and could see listening to it again.
They Called me Bookworm 